Why should health investors look to Norway?

– It’s a great time to invest in health in Norway. A lot of international investors are looking at the country right now and a terrific amount of companies are coming out of the Oslo region and producing high-quality products and services. Norway has a small population that really cares about their health with a high tech adoption rate which makes it helpful for testing and proving within the country.

One of every three health startups is born global. This means that ideas, solutions, and products should be global from day one. Oslo provides a solid platform for groundbreaking ideas that can be implemented globally. Coupled with extensive Norwegian Government investment in population-based surveys and low barriers to access that data, you have a system set to high growth research and innovation.

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Why should they especially keep an eye on the Oslo region?

– A lot of the companies that are emerging from the health sector are currently based in Oslo. It’s a melting point for companies coming together and being supported by clusters and the Government with early-stage R&D – this makes it a good area to invest in.

What are valuable opportunities in the sector right now?

– There are plenty of opportunities to invest in the health sector in Oslo. The Government is supporting the increase in competition within the health sector and is proactive about collecting health data from its population. This generates a huge amount of statistics and some of the most comprehensive registries in the world for health data. This is obviously very helpful for research and innovation. Tapping into that data stimulates entrepreneurship and other valuable focuses on this sector.

A field that is currently up and coming is precision health and precision medicine. The same goes for women’s health. It’s still an underrated field hiding in plain sight. A lot of opportunities will likely emerge from it, the same goes for digital health surrounding the pandemic. This is something investors and companies are focusing on and patients, stakeholders, and clinicals are looking for solutions to.

Do you have an example of success cases in your sector?

– Vaccibody, now Nykode, is a terrific success case producing novel vaccines within the health sector. It’s one of the biggest IPOs in the health sector in Norwegian history, if not the biggest.

We also have other emerging companies that are up and coming, like Confrere in terms of secure video conferencing tech and Dr.Dropin in terms of shaking up the GP system and accessibility to GPs within Norway and beyond. These are some terrific companies paving the way for others to follow.

Where can investors go to find more information about investment opportunities in your sector?

– The attention in the region is growing and you still have a good opportunity to get in early before it takes off. The clusters are a great place to start, a lot of them offer their members list online, so you should have a look at those. Oslo Business Region also just opened a Dealroom startup database where you can have a look at the transactions within some of the companies. And of course, the Norwegian Health Investment Network is a great first touchpoint for investors curious about investing in health in Norway. We try to collect all companies that are emerging from the health sector for investors to come and look at, and develop relationships between them.